The University of Maine hockey team’s slide continued on Friday night.
Graduate student Chris Theodore’s goal with 8:14 remaining broke a 1-1 tie and gave the University of Vermont’s Catamounts a 2-1 win over the Black Bears at the Gutterson Fieldhouse in Burlington, Vermont.
Ninth-ranked UMaine has now lost five of its last six and six of its last nine and is 19-10-2 overall and 11-9-1 in Hockey East.
UMaine was coming off a 4-0 loss to Northeastern and has now scored two goals or less in four of its last five games.
Vermont, which had gone just 1-4-2 in its previous seven games, improved to 13-15-3 and 7-11-3.
Senior goalie Gabe Carriere made 31 saves for the Catamounts in a stellar outing while UMaine freshman goalie Albin Boija made 17 stops.
Boija also picked up an assist, his first collegiate point.
Theodore’s sixth goal of the season came just 2:11 after UMaine junior Harrison Scott had tied it on the power play with a scintillating end-to-end rush. It was his 12th goal of the campaign.
Theodore converted off a two-on-one rush with Ryan Miotto and Will Zapernick picking up assists.
Making matters worse, a tripping penalty on freshman defenseman Liam Lesakowski was called during the play so UMaine had to kill a penalty immediately after giving up the goal.
“Two guys didn’t backcheck, they score and we take a penalty,” said UMaine head coach Ben Barr. “That changed the whole dynamic of the game.”
Theodore’s goal came at the expense of UMaine’s top line of Lynden Breen and Josh and Bradly Nadeau.
Isak Walther gave UVM a 1-0 lead with a fluke goal in the first period.
The puck was dumped behind the UMaine net and Boija went behind the net to play the puck. The puck took a crazy bounce off the boards, deflected in front of the net and glanced into the net off Bradly Nadeau’s skate.
Barr said his team was lackluster in the first two periods before finally playing up to potential in the third period when it outshot UVM 15-4.
“Why the desperation isn’t there is a real problem for us right now,” said Barr. “We got outworked in the first two periods.
“We have to figure it out,” he added. “We’ve been inconsistent. And it’s on me, too, not just the players.”
